Sang-hwa breaks two Olympic records en route to gold

Speed skating: Women’s 500m

Gold

Korean Lee Sang-hwa entered the Olympics saying she wanted to defend her 500-meter speed skating gold from the 2010 Vancouver games — and she exceeded that. Not only did Sang-hwa earn her second consecutive gold medal in the event, but she also demolished the field, through two Olympic records. Her final lap of 37.28 seconds is the top time in the history of the Olympics, and led to her overall time of 74.70 seconds, also an Olympic record.

Silver

Russian Olga Fatkulina registered a superb skate, but it was still short of the gold. Instead, Fatkulina earned the silver medal in front of her home crowd with an overall time of 75.06, which was 0.36 seconds behind Sang-hwa.

Bronze

The Dutch have dominated speed skating so far in Sochi, and Margot Boer ensured that the Netherlands would emerge from the 500 meters with at least one medal, earning the bronze with a time of 75.48 seconds.